EUTOCIUS

, a respectable Greek mathematician,
lived at Ascalon in Palestine about the year of Christ
550. He was one of the most considerable mathematicians
that flourished about the decline of the sciences
among the Greeks, and had for his preceptor Isidorus
the principal architect of the church of St. Sophia at
Constantinople. He is chiefly known however by his
commentaries on the works of the two ancient authors,
Archimedes and Apollonius. Those two commentaries
are both excellent compositions, to which we owe many
useful circumstances in the history of the mathematics.

His commentaries on Apollonius are published in
Halley's edition of the works of that author; and those
on Archimedes, first in the Basle edition, in Greek and
Latin, in 1543, and since in some others, as the late
Oxford edition. Of these commentaries, those rank
the highest, which illustrate Archimedes's work on the
Sphere and Cylinder; in one of which we have a recital
of the various methods practised by the ancients in the
solution of the Delian problem, or that of doubling the
cube. The others are of less value; though it cannot
but be regretted that Eutocius did not pursue his plan
of commenting on all the works of Archimedes, with
the same attention and diligence which he employed
in his remarks on the sphere and cylinder.

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